Born in Swinemunde
on the Baltic Sea in Pommerania (now in Poland, but then part of Germany), Else
Hildegard Ploetz grew up close to her mother, ultimately blaming her death on
her father, who she was convinced had given her syphilis. Running away to
Berlin, the young Else participated in the circle of poets around Stefan George
and had a three-year affair with the popular Bohemian artist, Melchior Lechter.
Later, she had a passionate affair with Ernst Hardt, and when that relationship
fell apart, she toured as a member of a tableau
vivant performers. After other sexual affairs and relationships, including
two years of marriage, Ploetz traveled with Felix Paul Greve, who was later
imprisoned for embezzlement, and staged his own suicide to disappear from
Germany. Ploetz followed him to the US and, ultimately, became a model for
artists. In 1913 she married Baron Leon von Freytag-Loringhoven in New York,
renaming herself the Baroness. When Baron Freytag-Loringhoven left her to
return to Germany, Else remained in New York, modeling for artists such as Man
Ray. Ray and Marcel Duchamp made a short film of her, and she soon became
famous as a Greenwich Village legend, arrested several times for wearing revealing
costumes and for stealing objects that caught her eye. During the same period,
she developed a close friendship with novelist and poet Djuna Barnes, who
helped her in Paris and later in Germany. On December 14, 1927, von
Freytag-Loringhoven died of asphyxiation due to a gas jet left on overnight.
Some acquaintances presumed her death was suicide, but friends such as Barnes
and Peggy Guggenheim believed it was, as Barnes put it, “a stupid joke.” Her
papers fell into the possession of Barnes after her death.

The selections above will appear in Subjoyride: Selected Poems from Green
Integer later this year.